Compared to their previous Listenable offering, Morphosis, Hate have largely dropped the Zyklon/Behemoth cold black metal elements in favor of a more generic death metal sound. Erebos is also a significantly slower album than Morphosis, with the band sometimes exploring unusual riffs ("Quintessence Of Higher Suffering"), breakdowns and some odd time-signatures, as well as Bolt Thrower-esque buildups in songs such as "Erebos". Unfortunately, these examples of a slightly more left-field approach to death metal are probably the sole interesting thing about this album. Hate is more than happy playing completely generically ("Hero Cults", "Hexagony" etc.) for the rest of the duration of this record and this is obviously one of the reasons why Erebos is such a boring album. With this said, it is definitely not the biggest reason.

Hate's real problem is actually the complete lack of unique hooks in their music. It should be noted that this has been a problem for them since the beginning of this band's career and it just keeps on lingering now, making Erebos really kinda annoying to listen to due to how staunchly Adam The First Sinner and co. refuse to get down to it and completely rethink their approach. Yes, the unforgiving cold black metal atmosphere sure did help Behemoth rise to glory and stop-go riffs and odd time signatures are similarly in very high demand nowadays due to how well Gojira is doing. These are great hooks; however, they are not Hate's hooks and the fact that the band attempts to claim them as their own frankly stinks a little of being too carefully designed for maximum appeal.

Thus, Hate's music is simply too diluted and lacks a well defined, recognizable sound signature. Due to this, in spite of the obvious high musical competence of all the musicians involved, Erebos fails to impress and lacks soul. I'm not going to listen to this album again.

Written on 03.11.2010 byjupitreas
With Metal Storm since 2002, jupitreas has been subjecting the masses to his reviews for quite a while now. He lives in Warsaw, Poland, where he does his best to avoid prosecution for being so cool.

NOT boring! of course it's not like "Morphosis" but it's not boring, bad review

I disagree with you. I find it totally boring.
This is what I think of it:
"To be honest, really original Hate from Poland have never been, but they were extremely enjoyable. Where they always played reliable death metal which came across enjoyable due to the light black metal influence they now sound like current day Behemoth. Even the picture could have been of Behemoth. Seeing as current day Behemoth already play totally generic unoriginal death metal the guys from Hate even manage to top that by squeezing it as monotonous as possible from their instruments. My God, super boredom galore. It is even so bad that every time I listened to 'Erebos', which I must have done about ten times, I was unable to listen to it in one sitting. The gentlemen do have control over their instruments, don't get me wrong, but please employ them in a useful manner. This is so incredibly standard and, once again, especially so immensely boring. Better forget about this album as soon as possible and let's hope for a return to their sound of yore instead of treading this beaten current day Behemoth path."

NOT boring! of course it's not like "Morphosis" but it's not boring, bad review

I disagree with you. I find it totally boring.
This is what I think of it:
"To be honest, really original Hate from Poland have never been, but they were extremely enjoyable. Where they always played reliable death metal which came across enjoyable due to the light black metal influence they now sound like current day Behemoth. Even the picture could have been of Behemoth. Seeing as current day Behemoth already play totally generic unoriginal death metal the guys from Hate even manage to top that by squeezing it as monotonous as possible from their instruments. My God, super boredom galore. It is even so bad that every time I listened to 'Erebos', which I must have done about ten times, I was unable to listen to it in one sitting. The gentlemen do have control over their instruments, don't get me wrong, but please employ them in a useful manner. This is so incredibly standard and, once again, especially so immensely boring. Better forget about this album as soon as possible and let's hope for a return to their sound of yore instead of treading this beaten current day Behemoth path."

Talking about boring death metal albums, then you should try Suffocation "Blood Oath" then compare it to this one, IMO this album it's even better than "Evangelion" by Behemoth.

What's all this ? Heard something thats not far from Vaders new albums? The Morbid Reich...? Hell to me this could sub for a better machine head and soulfly. Man Polands music is strong.. and mostly localized.. Kinda reminds me of Acid Drinkers and None Id love for all those bands from Poland and Germany to Tour USA on some mega tour.. i think that would better represant the culture.

Like other reviewers here the head does loose track of the body . And some of the leads could better serve the chorus's .. however for me it is far from a disjointed effort and these gentlemen are indeed talented. I will be waited for the next album .. i would like a to hear more music from this band definatly. However even i wasnt sure where they were going with it. If you weren't into this then id highly recommend a Greek band named Suicidal Angels a Slayer like band.